Allan Scally relay

I still hadn't quite recovered from Thursday's training session and thought about calling off, although I knew we were having trouble getting two teams together. In the expectation of a miracle recovery just in time for the race, I went along anyway, taking the Newtons with me in case circumstances would allow me to run in them. As it turned out, I was put on the last leg for the A team, which meant it would be less of an inconvenience to my teammates if something went drastically wrong. In any case I wasn't managing to shake off the injury and the Newtons offered the best chance of a pain-free run.

Due to policing issues, the course had been changed substantially from previous years, and was now a convoluted route around Mount Vernon. Reports from the runners on early legs suggested there was a long downhill just after the start, and quite a few short climbs later on, with a longer uphill section at the end, so the advice was not to set out too fast. The original route had an infamous hill about halfway round but was otherwise mostly flat and had few turns, so times were expected to be slower on average.

Just before the start of my leg I did a quick shoe survey to see if anybody else was wearing the Newtons, but it looked like it was just me. I got the initial uphill stretch out of the way and set off in pursuit of a small group of runners in the distance. I passed the first mile marker in 5:21, although the Forerunner recorded the first mile a few seconds later, but either way this was a pretty good start so it looked like the choice of footwear was working out OK. The next couple of miles weren't as fast on account of the hilly route and possibly having set out too fast, but I still managed to overtake a couple of the runners in front of me, and after about 15 minutes I passed Natasha who was on the final leg for the women's C team. I felt a bit better somewhere between 3 and 4 miles as I closed the gap on a Bellahouston Road Runner, eventually going past and managing to pull away, but the runners up ahead from Dumbarton and Glasgow University weren't getting any closer. We finished in 16th position. The distance came out at 4.81 miles and my time of 28:16 (average 5:53/mile) was the second fastest for Garscube. Pace splits: 5:28, 5:52, 6:01, 6:01, 6:06.